The MySQL server is not running or is blocked by a firewall! Please check this problem first ...

And here is a screenshot of the security check that says the firewall problem too, i have outpost firewall and since i only want to use xampp locally i didn't let mysql to go out to internet when i first ran xampp, do you think that may be problem? Thanks.

If you are working on localhost then it will not go out to the Internet anyway but still your firewall must allow those ports to pass through it or the firewall will block all access to those ports.

You can block requests coming into your PC on those ports if your server is running, usually by responding to a pop up message, or at least I can on my old Sygate Pro firewall.

Firewall rules are very flexible and can control ports in many ways, so perhaps you need to read the manual and see if you can set your firewall to do what you want without interfering with your server on local use but block for remote use, this is also possible on my old Sygate.

That's it, i wanna thank you for helping me to get it working, i think most of the problems came from blocking the port with the firewall, now everything is working as it should, Thank you one more time Izzi

Izzy, I am having the same problem. I have followed along step by step, and up til the change in the file config.inc.php, I had been getting identical results. When I changed the variable assignement to the value "cookie", however, I did not get any different results, even after a reboot. phpmyadmin stubbornly refuses to run, I get the same error #2003, and typing "mysql" in the command line gets me nothing either.

2. When I go to http://localhost, I get the standard XAMPP welcome screen, with the options to try the demos (they all work, I tried every one), launch phpmyadmin, etc.

3. When I click on phpmyadmin from that welcome screen, I get the same error that the previous user described: Welcome to phpMyAdminErrorMySQL said:

#2003 - The server is not responding

Connection for controluser as defined in your configuration failed.

HOWEVER:

4. When I try http://127.0.01/phpmyadmin in the URL box, I get a log in screen, asking for a login and password... I had never tried that method of getting to phpMyAdmin before, so I am pleased... and yet, I would like the other method to work as well.

In the etc folder, there is no "HOST" file, there is only "Hosts", which I had modified in a previous iteration of XAMPP (3 or 4 uninstall/reinstalls ago), to include some virtual hosts for 127.0.0.1

In any case, there is no HOST file, and there is no line in "Hosts" remotely like what you described. Here is the full text of the "Hosts" file:

# Copyright (c) 1993-1999 Microsoft Corp.## This is a sample HOSTS file used by Microsoft TCP/IP for Windows.## This file contains the mappings of IP addresses to host names. Each# entry should be kept on an individual line. The IP address should# be placed in the first column followed by the corresponding host name.# The IP address and the host name should be separated by at least one# space.## Additionally, comments (such as these) may be inserted on individual# lines or following the machine name denoted by a '#' symbol.## For example:## 102.54.94.97 rhino.acme.com # source server# 38.25.63.10 x.acme.com # x client host

Any other configuration changes I made previously were made to files that would have been lost when I uninstalled XAMPP. That said, I did open xampp\apache\conf\httpd.conf to make sure the line including httpd-vhosts.conf was not commented out (it wasn't). I also opened xampp\apache\conf\extra\httpd-vhosts.conf, and added blocks of code for each of the virtual hosts I wanted to add. I just confirmed, however, that those blocks of code are not there anymore.

Thank you so much. Now, where do I go to set a login and password for mySQL? Or should I revisit one of the other threads to find the answer?

Also, typing "mysql" at the command prompt doesn't seem to do anything, and I was led to believe that it would. Can you shed any light there?

Finally, if I were to download and install xampp on a machine with a fresh install of XP, which had never had IIS or any other server installed, would I still have to deal with these same problems, do you know? Or is everything that we have been doing, simply a set of corrections for problems created by previous installs of either xampp or IIS?